


The One That's Meant For Me

by luninosity



Series: Oh Boy! Or, Life's Better With A Buddy Holly Soundtrack [8]
Category: British Actor RPF, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Moving In Together, cold!James, worried!Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James gets cold easily. Michael worries, and has an epiphany regarding shared flats and coming home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One That's Meant For Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [significantowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/gifts).



> For [significantowl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl), who requested cold!James and likes hurt/comfort. This story technically fits in between [You Know My Love'll Not Fade Away](http://archiveofourown.org/works/613191) and [A Little Bit Of Loving Makes Everything Right](http://archiveofourown.org/works/624061), but should stand alone okay if you’ve not read the others. 
> 
> Title, opening, and closing lines from Buddy Holly's "You're The One," this time.
> 
> As ever, this 'verse is made up of requests; I have one more (involving Comic-Con) planned, but let me know if there's a story you'd like to see...

 

_you're the one that's causing my blues  
you're the one I don't want to lose  
you're the one that I'd always choose  
you're the one that's meant for me…_

  
Michael wakes up cold, and surprised by the fact, nearly simultaneously. The air’s icy, and bites like little teeth against his skin.  
  
Against _most_ of his skin. The stretch along his right side is currently occupied by a ball of James, who seems to be trying to curl in on himself and shiver and cling to Michael’s body heat all at once. Under most circumstances, this would be a successful course of action; Michael tends to run warm, and has therefore more than once been compared to a radiator, a hot-water bottle, and even a nice cup of tea, all in an impishly innocent Scottish purr.  
  
Right now, however, he’s cold. All the blankets’re on the floor for some unknown reason, and they’re sleeping naked because of very well-explored reasons, and his breath crackles in his lungs, and it’s too early for this sort of chill, not even properly technically winter, this is ridiculous—  
  
If he’s cold, James is probably half-frozen. Michael swears at his own thoughtlessness, not out loud, and dives for the disloyal blankets.  
  
Blue eyes open when he moves, but there’s no comment, which means that either James isn’t awake enough to talk or doesn’t feel like moving even that much; the small wordless sound of gratitude that he gets when they’re securely buried under heavy layers seems to indicate the latter.  
  
“Better?”  
  
A nod, and James puts his head on Michael’s shoulder. Shuts the eyes again. Michael tugs a blanket-fold up over his head, protecting all the hair. Puts his arms back around those shoulders, where they belong.  
  
He wonders what time it is. Can’t see the clock without moving. But he’s not going to move, not now. He lies there holding on and gradually thawing out and listening to James’s drowsy breathing, in and out, steady. He suspects it’s far later than they’d normally sleep; but, then, they _had_ also been up late, the night before. He can’t regret any of that time, or this time, spent in bed.  
  
They’re in James’s bed. James’s flat. Complete with a tower of fantasy novels on the left bedside table, and a prop-replica phaser hung on the wall in the other room, and meticulously cleaned bakery paraphernalia nesting in the kitchen; Michael knows this place like he knows the sound of his own name, or James’s voice, or the definition of the word _home_.  
  
James’s flat is tiny and made up of approximately three rooms—four, counting the miniscule bathroom—and entirely too many books, spilling joyously off the bookshelves and onto every available surface, and it’s often scented like richly spiced gingerbread or pineapple-orange upside-down cake or fresh-baked chocolate-chip peanut-butter cookies or whatever James’s felt like creating that day, and every time Michael walks through the door he wants to stop and breathe in and just gaze around for a moment, because everywhere he looks he’s finding another glimpse of James.  
  
These days, a few of his own shirts live in the closet, side by side with all the fluffy sweaters. And a minor colony of half-read prospective scripts has begun on the other bedside table.  
  
James had blushed ferociously, inviting him over for the first time: “It’s kind of a mess, I mean really kind of a mess, I tend to collect recipes and I ran out of bookshelf space about two shelves ago and you can move that plush _U.S.S. Enterprise_ off that chair if you want—”  
  
“James,” Michael’d said, reaching for an expressive hand, arresting apologetic motion mid-wave, “the _Enterprise_ can stay.”  
  
He rests his head against that dark-haired one, beneath the woolly blanket. James is so beautiful, he thinks, and of course he thinks that all the time, the knowledge permanently woven into his heart and his worldview, but every once in a while he’s still struck breathless by it, bright lips and sparkling-wave eyes and scattered-treasure freckles, where the universe’d had extra ruby and topaz and gold-dust left over and had decided to fling it all exuberantly across Scottish-pale skin.  
  
The object of his attention sighs and sticks a muscular calf between Michael’s legs and burrows in as if trying to collect all the warmth through as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. Michael laughs, but quietly, and drops a kiss on the top of that head, and strokes his back until James drifts off again, all the freckles safely encircled by possessive wool and equally devoted arms.  
  
His own flat, more centrally located and more expensive and far less lived-in, has white walls and gleaming sinks, and his possessions lurking half in boxes because the profession demands on-location shoots every other month, and he’d always thought he’d get round to unpacking, but he’d never had the time, never felt like it somehow, never quite seen the point if he was only going to live out of suitcases anyway.  
  
James, the first night they’d stayed at Michael’s place, had glanced around with some surprise; he’d not said anything, but Michael’d caught those hands surreptitiously patting a barren wall, as if to offer comfort, and he was one hundred percent sure that the model AT-ATs hadn’t been perched atop the entertainment center before.  
  
He suspects that it’s just James. That anyplace James goes will instantly notice and perk up and transform itself into a home.  
  
He watches James sleep, not really thinking any specific thoughts, only letting the contentment suffuse his body, here and lazy and satisfied, James relaxed and undisturbed at the moment by cold or nightmares; and all at once he _is_ thinking a specific thought, and it’s _home_.  
  
Him. And James. Together.  
  
It’s obvious and glorious and clear. He wants this, every day; maybe not the chill in the air or the lack of blankets, but the solid presence of James at his side, the knowledge that he’ll open his eyes each morning and see the slightly off-center sprinkling of freckles on that nose, the taste of teacakes and powdered sugar and lemon cream, light and airy as champagne-bubbles, like the ones dancing in his veins right now, slow-fizzing excitement.  
  
It’s his future, he can see it stretching out in front of him like a film reel, romantic and domestic and ordinary and spectacular, the way that life with James will always be, forever.  
  
He really wants to tell this all to James, who lets out a huff of air into Michael’s ear and refuses, naturally, to awaken.  
  
At this point Michael’s mobile phone goes off, shrieking the X-Men theme into the morning because it’s Bryan Singer calling.  
  
James yelps and bolts upright, blinking hair out of his eyes. Michael swears in English and German and French for good measure and pushes James back down into the pillows and lunges for the irritation. Just because he can and Bryan won’t understand, he says a very nasty word in Gaelic when he picks up.  
  
“Don’t swear at me in languages I don’t know. Heathen. It’s nearly eleven am; did you get the latest script delivery?”  
  
“We’re still in bed.”  
  
“You can’t possibly be asleep—oh, no. No mental images. Bad. Though if you wanted to go on record and let me take pictures we could sell more tickets when the film opens—”  
  
“I’m going to swear at you again.”  
  
“Is that Bryan?” James sits up, yawning. He’s unfairly adorable pre-coffee, unfocused and disheveled and cuddly. A sleepy kitten, missing nonexistent sunbeams. “What does he want?”  
  
“To torment us. This is our break. We’re on a break. Between the first read-throughs and the start of rehearsals. Two weeks, you said.”  
  
“Which gives you two weeks to memorize the script revisions.”  
  
“Tell him,” James says, “that I’m going to learn how to make haggis, just for him, and then I’m going to hide it somewhere in his office, at the studio, and he won’t find it for weeks, and his entire office will smell of the insides of a sheep, and he’ll have to move offices, or possibly tear down the building, because that’s never going away.”  
  
Michael, torn between laughter and sheer horror at James’s ingenious methods of revenge, settles for, “Then you can call us in two weeks. I don’t think you’ll enjoy James’s plans, otherwise.”  
  
“You know you’d help me hide it.”  
  
“Tell him I can tell wardrobe to make his pants even tighter. I have the power. I’m your director.”  
  
James leans in to the phone and notes, “We might appreciate that, I do look fantastic in tight pants, and Michael says the nicest things about my backside, when—”  
  
“Oh, god,” Bryan says, “when you said you were still in bed, I didn’t think you meant, you know, actually having sex. Go away.”  
  
“You called us.”  
  
“Good idea, though.”  
  
“ _Argh_ ,” Bryan declares, and hangs up the phone.  
  
James looks at Michael, and Michael looks at James, and they both burst out laughing, there under the covers, in the dim light of the misty day.  
  
“I do appreciate your backside. Particularly naked.”  
  
“Do you? Come here and appreciate, then—”  
  
“The same sort of appreciation as last night? Or would you rather I do… _this,_ this time?”  
  
“That. And _then_ that. But not that, because that tickles—!”  
  
Quite a bit later, after they’ve had a very good morning indeed and enjoyed the pillowy bed to the fullest extent, pun made by Michael and thoroughly intended and resulting in a failed attempt to kick him by a pinned-down James-foot, after they’ve fit themselves into the minute box-shower that practically requires them to rub up against each other and soap whosever body parts’re in reach and end up enjoying themselves a second time, after Michael’s made coffee with vanilla and coconut cream and pressed it into freckled hands and gotten a decadently-flavored kiss in return, he finally checks the mail, and sure enough, there’re two hefty paper-shaped packages hulking on the doorstep.  
  
Bryan’d probably snickered to himself, addressing Michael’s copy to James’s flat. Oh, well, Michael thinks, and shrugs, and takes a sip of his own plain black coffee, caffeine delivery system, and picks them both up and takes them inside. Not as if he or James cares. Kind of nice, actually.  
  
The day passes in companionable silent script-review, the two of them sharing the sofa, James occasionally shifting position, legs tucked up under him or toes stuck beneath Michael’s thigh for warmth or opting to use Michael’s shoulder as a backrest. Michael sighs, and flips the blanket off the back of the sofa and over him, because even through socks those toes really are cold.  
  
James finishes first, because James is a fast reader; Michael’s become faster over the years because he’s had to, but James devours books in huge gulps, one or more a day. It’s no wonder there’re so many science-fiction novels on those shelves; it’s hard to picture James living anywhere unaccompanied by words and dreams on paper.  
  
Michael’s slower on this particular day, though, because he keeps pausing to study James, that dark head bent over his own script copy, intent. He wants this forever, he thinks, wants this sort of day forever. Being home, with James.  
  
There are, he understands, reasons James might not want that, or not yet, if ever. And that understanding’s as arctic as the sky outside.  
  
Those reasons are dwindling. Healing. He believes that; James has told him so. Has looked at him with those sea-glass eyes and promised, it’s better with you here.  
  
He’s been staying over more often than not, these days and nights. It’s better for him, too.  
  
James, having finished, has moved on to some T.H. White, a battered copy of _The Once and Future King_ that he’s emphatically certain Erik and Charles would’ve had debates about, and so wants to read again. Michael watches him turn pages and sees that tantalizing glimpse of the future in the movement of hands, the flicker of smile at some enticing combination of words.  
  
But he doesn’t know. And all at once he’s restless with the unknowing.  
  
He makes himself finish the last five pages, because that’s his job. James isn’t leaning on him, so he can get up, and he does, and prowls around the flat, needing to be on his feet, needing to find the path between what he wants to do and what he can do and what he can reasonably ask James to do.  
  
The opalescent clouds offer no help, secure and serene beyond the window. The refrigerator’s no help either, when he walks out there and stares into it. The array of bread and milk and left-over take-out Chinese and imported beer offers no help either. It’s not as if he’s even hungry, and the food knows it.  
  
“Everything all right, then?” Blue eyes’re peeking at him, over the back of the couch. “Anything I can do?”  
  
Of course. Because James will always offer, every time. Because James is a good person, the most unhesitatingly generous and unselfish person Michael’s ever met, and that combined with a lethal tartan-and-bagpipes accent and unruly hair and a wicked talent for innuendo makes him irresistible, and Michael’s never been able to resist, because he’s in love with James so thoroughly that the feeling’s woven into his soul.  
  
He wants to keep James safe from all the nightmares and kiss him senseless and fuck him hard and fierce against the back wall of that tiny shower and bring him socks when his toes are chilly, and he doesn’t know how to make sense of all the contradictions. He doesn’t know how he can ask James, so strong on his own for years in the face of old terrors, to accept help, to let him be there always, to hold him in the cold.  
  
“Michael?”  
  
“I think…I just…um, is there anything we need from the store? Anything you need?”  
  
“I…don’t think so, no.”  
  
“Can I buy you more books? Is there something you don’t have?”  
  
“What? And, um, I could use a new copy of Susan Cooper’s _The Dark Is Rising_ series, the collected set, mine’s falling apart—”  
  
“Do you think they’d have one in that place around the corner?”  
  
“Possibly. Michael, what’s wrong? And you don’t need to buy me books. I don’t have space for these as it is, if you’ve somehow not noticed.”  
  
“Nothing’s wrong.” He comes over and kisses those enticing lips, an apology. They’re dry and startled and a touch apprehensive, under his. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been thinking too much.”  
  
“Was that hard for you,” James says, but it’s gentler than usual, teasing because it’s expected, still concerned underneath. “Seriously, is there anything I can do?”  
  
“Um…want to come with me for a run?”  
  
James eyes him incredulously. “With your greyhound legs? No, thank you, I’ve got a blanket and a book.”  
  
“Then…walk?”  
  
“Do you really just want to get out of the flat? Fine.” Bookmark in, up, stretching, with a little noise of satisfaction that nearly shortcircuits Michael’s brain and derails all the plans before they’ve even coalesced. “Let me find shoes. And a coat. And gloves. And—”  
  
“Here’s your scarf. Do you need chapstick?”  
  
“No,” James says, and puts it in his pocket anyway. “Cherry. Honestly. You’re lucky I love you.”  
  
“They were out of the normal kind, and you told me to pick some up for you…”  
  
“As long as you don’t mind; you’re the one who has to kiss me. Ready?”  
  
“I get to.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I _get_ to kiss you. Not have to. I like kissing you.” He demonstrates; James sighs and tips that head up to kiss back, eyes open and inviting and sweet with desire, compact muscles pressed snugly along Michael’s own body. “Mmm…no, not entirely convinced, I think you should persuade me more.”  
  
“Later. Come on, you’re already dressed…”  
  
“Is this what it’s like owning a puppy? This must be what it’s like owning a puppy.”  
  
“I can lick your face if you’d like,” Michael offers, and catches the hand when James throws a mock punch at his shoulder. Takes the fingers and brings them to his lips and kisses them, instead. James sighs. “All right, then, let’s go. Should I bring toys for you? A bone?—oh god don’t say it, I’m sorry, I take it back, I swear, I did not just walk right into—”  
  
“A bone?”  
  
“Oh, fuck you.”  
  
“Would that be involving a—”  
  
“No treats for you.” But James takes his hand regardless as they head out the door, fingers shorter and broader and familiar in Michael’s, fitting there like the perfect complement to his own. James is wearing his most colorful fingerless gloves, the ones his sister sent last Christmas as a joke, magenta stripes and silver glitter-thread woven in; Michael twines their fingers together, feeling the softness along his skin.  
  
“No treats at all?”  
  
“Maybe later. If you’re good.”  
  
“I can be very good, in that case…”  
  
They wander down the street, comfortable. James lives in, not the newest or fanciest area of London, but one of the _nicest_. The sort of area with used-book shops on every other corner, and flowers spilling gleefully out of well-watered gardens. Tea-rooms that serve proper tea, the kind that’s a meal in disguise and doesn’t bother catering to tourists. Pubs that’ve hung on stolidly since probably the days of Cromwell, and look likely to continue standing for centuries more.  
  
Michael catches himself studying the houses as they pass. Red brick. Newer stone. Slim doorways. James likes history, a sense of place and a touch of fantasy to the storytelling; but James also likes spacious rooms and needs bookshelf accommodation. Would James like that building, over there? Or the one over _there_ , with the swooping roof and wide-flung windows?  
  
James’s flat _is_ tiny. He could move into it, or try to, but the wardrobe might actually explode with one more shirt stuffed in. And they’d probably need a bigger kitchen, because while he hasn’t unpacked in his current place, he’d want to in a place with James, would want to move everything in, and he’s got his own pots and pans and kitchen collection, all good quality, authoritatively advised by his father, and maybe James would want to learn some of his father’s recipes, maybe they could cook together in their new kitchen, the two of them side-by-side at the stove, stirring spoons and savory steam in the air…  
  
“Michael?”  
  
“What? Sorry.”  
  
“Were we planning to cross the street, or ogle that not-actually-medieval apartment building? It appreciates the attention, but it might get uncomfortable if you stare too long at its fake crenellation.”  
  
“I wasn’t—I was just—never mind.” Would James want to live with him? They’ve never even discussed the idea. Too grateful for what they have, for this second chance; Michael occasionally awakens astounded to be back in James’s bed at all. He could’ve lost this so easily, so carelessly, with just a few unthinking words. He almost had, once. And then James had chosen to let him back in, and even closer than before.  
  
He holds that hand a little tighter. James glances up, but only smiles, and nudges their shoulders together, easily.  
  
Bed, he thinks again. And then he hears that question with different emphasis: _would_ James want to live with him? To move someplace new, even with him? When James has such brutal nightmares, terrifying and persistent, always worse in unfamiliar places?  
  
He knows, now, how difficult it is for James to sleep well, or to sleep with another person in the bed, when he wakes up trembling and unable to speak, words banished by the monsters in his dreams. He’s heard that voice try to explain, halting, tripping over words in the dark: it’s not as if it’s a proper nightmare, really, it’s just me in a bed and there’s a man—I think it’s a man, I don’t know why I think that actually—  
  
James, he’d said.  
  
James had breathed in, and put his head on Michael’s chest, and gone on. A man. Standing there. Looking down at him. And the unutterable vast certainty that if James were to move, or scream, or even breathe, any indication of awareness at all…  
  
James wakes up shaking from head to toe, eyes huge and drained of all their color by fear. Had taken too long to recognize Michael, that last time, the previous week, and then had wept, the deep soul-shaking release of relief and fear and ebbing emotion, in Michael’s arms.  
  
He’d held James for hours in the pearl-murmur light of predawn, rubbing his back, talking gently, singing to him, old Irish lullabies and classic oldies tunes, the sort of music that Michael’s parents like to reminisce about and that James always flips on in the car, happy and carefree and full of exuberant joy, all about sweethearts and dancing and falling in love under a endless blue summer moon.  
  
Some piece of that must’ve worked, because James had breathed in and gradually stopped shivering and even whispered a few lines along with him, not quite singing but saying thank you. Michael had very nearly shed tears of his own, then.  
  
He squeezes James’s hand again. Those fingertips, ungloved, feel a bit too cold in his; the air’s icy. It’s the kind of weather that’s not solidified into rain, only damp silvery stickiness, clinging to skin and coat-sleeves. No sun at all.  
  
James tips his head against Michael’s shoulder, after they cross. Casual, unworried. Unafraid.  
  
James is the bravest person he knows. Incontrovertible, that fact.  
  
“I love you,” he says.  
  
James stops leaning on him, surprised. “And I love you. You just felt the need to say so?”  
  
“I always feel the need to say so. Are you cold?”  
  
“I…maybe a little. Are you feeling better, though? Less trapped by my flat?”  
  
“I don’t feel trapped by your flat! I like your flat. It feels like you.” He adds, “I mean it, you know,” because those oceanic eyes are very skeptical. The tidepools and glinting waves remain unconvinced.  
  
“Hmm. If you say so. If we head back, we can start on dinner. Soup? Sandwiches?”  
  
“Bourbon sweet-potato bisque and grilled cheddar, apple, and bacon?”  
  
“First, I don’t think you’ve made that one for me before, so if you want help you’re going to have to give me directions. Second, are you trying to apologize for something? Or are you worried about me?”  
  
“No.” Yes. James has admitted to being cold. “But you like all of those things. And it’s comfort food, sort of, isn’t it, and it’s a good day for that, and you came on a walk with me, and I like cooking with you, and waking up with you, and I do like your flat, and I love you. I just…I want you to be happy. With me.”  
  
“Oh,” James says, head on one side, smiling at him, sliding his arm around Michael’s waist, “well, then, that’s good. Because I am.”  
  
They meander back through the looming wintry clouds, past the neighbors who wave, the kids who kick a football over a fence—James kicks it back, right between the makeshift flowerpot goal-posts, and Michael applauds—and the lights blossoming in restaurants and shops and homes, bright against the gloom.  
  
He steers them past the closest bookshop, on the way. They’re closing up, but the owner recognizes them, and beams, and unlocks the door. Michael finds a boxed set that contains five novels in a certain series and holds it out to James and says “Is this what you were looking for?” and then pays for the set plus three others because James makes cooing noises at them when he spots them for sale, happily unshakeable in the handing-over of money even though James tries to protest.  
  
Up the steps, into the beckoning glow of the flat, where painted walls and curious books await; James shrugs off his coat and kicks away shoes, but otherwise leaves on all the layers. Michael, who managed the entire walk back without letting go of him, feels his eyebrows tugging themselves together in a frown. “Still cold?”  
  
“I’m all right.” James considers his gloves, strips them off. “Can’t really cook with these on, can I. What do we need? Cream, sweet potatoes, butter…”  
  
“Garlic. Onion. Do you have any curry powder?”  
  
“Probably. I used it for those cream-cheese Thai-spice cupcakes. You know, the ones we brought to the wardrobe fitting.”  
  
“The ones you brought—”  
  
“You helped!”  
  
“—and made half the costume department fall in love with you, yes.”  
  
“People should appreciate them more. They work awfully hard, and they make us all look incredible.” The _even me_ isn’t spoken aloud; Michael’s headshake isn’t articulated either, but he does walk over, unearthed curry powder in one hand, and kiss James soundly.  
  
“You always look incredible. Though I’d appreciate you not stealing any of Charles’s wardrobe this time around.”  
  
“No promises. I have my eye on that one paisley shirt, you know. Very stylish.”  
  
“I’m thinking we need to have a talk about era-appropriate definitions again—” And then he stops. Because he’s standing there next to James, laughing, teasing, in love, and James has been getting out the cold ingredients, cream and butter and fresh produce, except James is holding everything a bit awkwardly, using palms and the flat of his hands to balance, and that’s because James evidently can’t feel his fingers, because—  
  
 _“Why are your fingers blue?”_  
  
“Ow—!”  
  
“Sorry!” But he needs to see. He’s holding both pale hands in his, hastily snatched up. They _are_ blue. Not in the exaggerated way most people use the term, but really bloodless and frozen and dread-inducing.  
  
“James, what—can you feel this?” The ow had likely been because he’d grabbed the hands, startlement rather than sensation; he pokes a fingernail into the tip of an index finger. “James?”  
  
“They’ll thaw out, they always do, they’re just a bit numb—”  
  
“Christ—” He tugs James over to the sink. Flips on the water; not hot, lukewarm, safe. James gasps, even so.  
  
“Does that sting?”  
  
“Yes—oh, _fuck_ yes—”  
  
“Good. You’ll be—all right. But, James…” Ocean-dark eyes look up at him, as Michael holds those hands under blessedly obliging water, rubbing life back into them. It must hurt more than James is letting on, pins and needles under his skin, because he’s biting his lip, and his eyes quiver with the sharpness.  
  
“You’ll be all right,” Michael tells them both once more, and can’t put an arm around him because they’re occupied, but tries to enfold James in himself anyway, taller height and long lean muscle and frightened love. “Why didn’t you tell me? Does this happen a lot?”  
  
“Honestly, yes.” Another lip-bite, not quite in time to hold back the wince at returning sensation. “I normally just do this—what you’re doing—this is kind of worse than usual, I admit, I was distracted—”  
  
“Stay here for a minute.” He runs over to turn up the heat, on the wall. Sprints back, resumes hand-chafing duties. “Better?”  
  
“Getting there…it looks worse than it is.” The broken exhale suggests that this might not be entirely true. Abandoned ingredients watch them from the counter, trepidatious. “This really does happen sometimes. I’m used to it. Just a blood circulation…thing. Not serious. Can’t recall the name, but if it makes you feel any better, I did see a proper doctor about it, years back. He said there’s not much to do, other than watch myself when I’m cold.”  
  
Because numbness might so easily turn into worse. Frostbite. Unnoticed cuts or bruises, minor at the time, going untreated.  
  
James had woken up cold, that morning.  
  
The winter’s crept into his chest, now, hollowing out his heart. Too many apocalyptic possibilities.  
  
“Hey.” James wiggles fingers in Michael’s suddenly petrified grip, under the fall of water. “I’ve lived with this for years, okay? Relax. And also, look, I can move them now. I can hold your hands. See?”  
  
“…maybe.” He turns his hands, carefully. Folds them around the freckled ones, no longer so horrifically hued. “You can feel this?”  
  
“Completely yes. I’m all right, I swear.” Head tipped back, meeting Michael’s gaze, a smile. “I love you. Should we get back to making dinner, now that I’m thoroughly thawed out?”  
  
Michael nods, and turns off the water, but then has to reach for him again, so they end up just standing in the kitchen, both hands joined and slightly dripping and warm, that smile edging up into tropical-sunshine eyes, brilliant and beloved.  
  
“So, are you giving me directions for this recipe, or—”  
  
“James?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Yes, I can give you directions…but…I want to ask you…and this isn’t just because you nearly gave me a heart attack, just now…”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“No, you’re right, you’re all right, I just sort of…I need you to be all right. I need to know you are. And I want to be here when you’re cold. Please tell me.”  
  
“I will. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I think I’ve been cold all day, and it just kept building on itself. Like tree trunks. Or onions. New layers. Layers of cold. Do trees get cold? Because—”  
  
“Um. Ents might.” James’s expression of pure delight makes the not-really-very-clever reference entirely worth it. “And that’s not actually what I wanted to ask you. Although that’s sort of why. Because you worry about trees getting frostbite and you reassure me when I’m trying to take care of you, and I was looking at houses and apartments on our walk because, um, I do love your flat, and I love you, and I woke up this morning and wanted to kiss you, and would you maybe possibly think about wanting us to move in together?”  
  
James doesn’t answer immediately. Then says, expression complicatedly unreadable, “Michael—”  
  
“I know we’re hardly ever at home, I know we’ll be on location and filming and—but I like the idea of us sort of having a place, somewhere to come home to, I think, and if you don’t want to move I can move in here, we’ll make it work, I don’t need half my stuff, it’s still in boxes—”  
  
“Michael!”  
  
He stops. Remembers that he shouldn’t do all the talking. He never has known how to end sentences, when it’s important.  
  
James squeezes his hands. Firmly. With perfectly healthy fingers. “You don’t have to convince me. I want to.”  
  
“You…do?”  
  
“Yes, I do.” A glance around the kitchen, at the patient refrigerator and curry powder and potatoes. “I’ve been thinking about it…waking up, with you, when you hold me…breakfast and dinner and those teacakes you like, when I make them…and this. Today. Perfect, with you.”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
“And I love you.” James stretches up on tiptoes for a kiss, abrupt and graceful and lovely. His hair’s standing up in dark rumpled waves, and the crooked freckles on his nose catch the overhead light, and those lips taste like cherry chapstick and happy endings. “I wasn’t…I’d not quite gotten to the looking-at-places stage, mind you. And I think we would need to move. We can’t fit all your pots in here.”  
  
“We don’t have to,” Michael whispers, because the moment feels like a whisper, fragile and delicate joy. “We can—I’ll pick a few of the most essential, okay, and everything else can go in storage, you don’t have to—I know you like it here.” I know you feel safe here, he doesn’t say.  
  
“I do, yes.” James glances at the countertop, strewn with ingredients; smiles. “But I like you, too. And your pots will be heartbroken if you leave them behind. And I think I could also like the idea of finding a place that we pick out. Me and you.”  
  
“With a big enough kitchen,” Michael says, softly, and tugs him in closer, noses brushing together when James looks up, “and room for books, and sunlight, and a shower I can decently seduce you in. And good central heating. That’s a requirement, you know.”  
  
“Can we keep my bed?” James asks, half joking, half serious, and they both know why.  
  
“I like yours better anyway,” Michael agrees promptly, “we’ve got a lot of good memories involving your bed,” and when James laughs even the grey mist hovering outside the windows brightens up and becomes welcoming, no longer an icy shroud but a thick luxurious blanket, holding them enclosed and protected and warm.

 

 

_you're the one and I want you to know  
you're the one that thrills me so  
you're the one, I can't let you go  
you're the one that's meant for me_


End file.
